Flooded Chatham steels for longest night

CHATHAM — The longest day turned into the longest night for flood-menaced Chatham, a city that won’t know until it wakes up Sunday how bad things might get from the swollen Thames River already bursting its banks in the city’s centre.

Peak river levels in Southwestern Ontario’s most flood-prone city are now expected in overnight darkness Saturday, not earlier as originally thought.

For the city of 45,000, it means a long wait to see if the elaborate flooding defences that protect it — everything from a floodwater diversion channel, to a downtown pumping station and a series of dikes pushed close to their limit to hold back water — will hold up.

The threat?

Predictions that floodwaters could hit levels unseen in 50 years, an ominous prospect even in a city that’s endured many headline-grabbing floods before.

The dire forecast is the fallout of all that rain — a month’s worth fell in mere days — and a fast-melting snowpack in the upper reaches of the Thames River’s Southwestern Ontario drainage area, with all that water now charging through the Thames into Chatham on its way to Lake St. Clair.

Already, a civic emergency has been declared in Chatham-Kent, with Mayor Randy Hope talking plans to ask the federal and provincial governments for clean-up help.

Hope, who a day earlier called for a voluntary evacuation of Thamesville, upriver, expressed thanks Saturday that civic and other workers pulled together and that no one had died in the fallout of the flooding.

Members of the Chatham-Kent Fire & Services dive team arrived on scene at the Siskind and Pegley Court area of Chatham, Ont. on Saturday February 24, 2018 to assist some residents whose homes were flooded.Louis Pin /
Postmedia News

But with the area conservation authority projecting the river will rise another 60 centimetres, the worst appeared yet to come.

“The last time we checked earlier this morning we were expecting about another foot of rise on the river . . . we’re expecting that peak to occur sometime overnight,” said Jason Wintermute, a water specialist with the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority (LTVCA).

“The entire event has kind of been unfamiliar territory,” he added. “Events of this magnitude — typically, the peaks have come through a lot higher than they have this time and they’ve come a lot earlier than they have this time.”

Instead, he said, the peak water levels this time have been a little lower and slower.

“As we keep going on, we’ve had to keep pushing back the times” of the worst danger, he said.

Hope called for area residents to remain vigilant about safety.

“It’s not over with. It’s not receding,” he said of the Thames.

Days after the rest of the region saw flooding from swollen rivers and ice jams, Chatham is only now sloshing in the worst of the fallout of all that water, which takes days to reach Chatham-Kent from the river’s headlands.

Flood warnings remained in effect, a day after the voluntary evacuation in Thamesville when civic officials set up an evacuation shelter at Chatham-Kent’s convention centre in Chatham.

Latest LTVCA projections for peak floodwaters mean big areas of Chatham could be dealing with river water levels unseen since 1968.

The area’s flooding defences include a water diversion channel, pumping works and dikes. But all that could be severely tested, with some dikes already near their full capacity to hold back water from a river that’s already overflowed its banks in the downtown and other low areas.

A man moves his car from a flooding parking lot along the Thames River in downtown Chatham, ON. on Friday, February 23, 2018.Dan Janisse /
Windsor Star

“We remain concerned about the water level and pressure on riverbanks and dikes,” he said. “Although there isn’t a problem with ice, there is the possibility of the channel being partially blocked by debris which could escalate the danger.”

Many downtown businesses and homes in the Siskind Court area were flooded Saturday, and the dire predictions of higher river levels — with the possibility of more weekend rain — would only add to the risk for other low areas already dealing with street and basement flooding.

Firefighters escorted those who needed it to safety, walking through knee-deep water to take people out and removing others using an inflatable dinghy. In the Siskind Court area, they helped seven people get out.

Hope said there’s no way to project damages yet, but that he will raise the issue of clean-up help with both the provincial and federal governments.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne expressed her support for Chatham-Kent in a tweet indicating Queen’s Park stands ready to help.

“Chatham-Kent and surrounding areas are facing heavy flooding. My thoughts are with the people in these communities — Ontario will support you during this emergency and as you rebuild and recover,” she tweeted.

A call to the premier’s office for comment was forwarded to Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Mauro, whom The Chatham Daily News has learned plans to visit Chatham-Kent on Monday though details were still being worked out.

The area’s Conservative MP, Dave Van Kesteren, said the situation will have to be assessed to see if the flooding qualifies for federal disaster relief.

Volunteers were staffing an evacuation centre set up at the civic convention centre in Chatham, the John D. Bradley Centre, where about half a dozen people had reportedly taken temporary shelter before joining family and friends elsewhere.

“We’ve had a few people in the door; most people are going to families and friends at this point. We’re on standby to see what’s coming tonight,” said volunteer Donna Girard of the Windsor-Essex Red Cross

Judy Martin arrived home from work Saturday to her Mary Street home, to the worst flooding she’s seen in the area, but said she had no plans to leave since she lives on the building’s seventh floor.

“I’ve been here 10 years and this is the highest I’ve seen it,” she said.

As in Thamesville a day earlier, officials encountered residents reluctant or unwilling to leave their homes despite the rising water.

“We do have a few people that chose not to evacuate and those are the individuals that we are assisting now,” Chatham-Kent fire department spokesperson Whitney Burk said.

Joyce Holmes, who lives in the flooded Siskind Court zone, heeded the flood warning and went to stay with a friend in nearby Wallaceburg.

“Everything’s up off the floor except my chair and chesterfield and washer and dryer, that kind of stuff,” she said.

Low-lying and flat, at the bottom of a major river system, Chatham is accustomed to flooding and has endured many major hits.

One lucky break this time is that a key contributor to flooding — ice jams at the mouth of the Thames at Lake St. Clair, which back up river water all the way to Chatham, spilling it across the flat terrain, aren’t a factor this time.

But Lakeshore Mayor Tom Bain, whose community takes in Lighhouse Cove — where the Thames River meets Lake St. Clair — said officials are ready for an evacuation there if needed.

“We are fortunate that there’s no ice,” he said. “It would be traumatic if we had any ice jams at the mouth of the Thames.”

The situation is improving along the also swollen Sydenham River, which flows through the Wallaceburg area of Chatham-Kent.

The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority (SCRCA) began gradually opening the gates at the W. Darcy McKeough Dam on Friday as water levels on the Sydenham and its tributaries slowly began to recede.

Water levels across the region’s wider drainage area are expected to fall through the weekend, returning to normal by Monday.

The flooding in Southwestern Ontario, the worst in decades, triggered a state of emergency earlier this week in Brantford, where three neighbourhoods were evacuated as the ice-jammed Grand River overflowed its banks.

Major flooding also hit Port Bruce, along Lake Erie southeast of St. Thomas, where a key bridge collapsed Friday as a dump truck drove across it.

Roads and low-lying areas in the upper reaches of the Thames, including in London, were also flooded in the wake of the torrential rainfall and unseasonable warm weather that unlocked the region’s snow pack.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS SATURDAY

— Entegrus, the electrical utility serving the area, had turned off service to a small number of homes in Chatham, with the company urging anyone with questions about electrical safety to contact them through the company’s website at entegrus.com

— The evacuation shelter at the John D. Bradley Centre in Chatham was to remain open through the day, with anyone needing shelter urged to call 519 360-1998.

— The municipality is providing updates at chatham.kent.ca, urging residents to have 72 hours’ worth of medications and other personal supplies since the floodwaters could persist for days.

— The fire department has posted information on personal preparedness at Facebook.com/ckfiredept/

WHAT OTHERS SAID

“Yesterday (Friday), we were concerned about Thamesville. So I attended Thamesville’s fire station Friday and told the firefighters and the volunteers that look after that community . . . and we have a map on the wall that showed at peak levels, this will be the water damage. And nearly every firefighter who stood there realized that their own homes were at risk of floodwater. And I said to everyone, “If any of you need to go home and make arrangements before we start please do, and none of them did. Every single one of them got on the trucks and went out, and put their community first. That for me has got to be one of the proudest moments in my career – yesterday, talking to those firefighters.”

— Chatham-Kent assistant fire Chief Chris Case

“We’ve had some local companies drop off some donations for us . . . The support from the local community has been fabulous, and the municipality is very grateful for that, and we work in partnership, of course, with the Red Cross.”

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